Elite v1.0: the anatomy of a bonk

Woke up at 5:00am to my alarm clock. This is when you question "why do i race?". Fixed my normal pre race meal of French toast and Nutella (just don't eat with less than three hours pre race). Got a call from Jim mid way through my meal prep. Turns out that "chance of showers" was a pretty nasty guarantee. Scoped out the radar for myself and sure enough, it looked brutal. Jim was on the ropes, and I won't lie, so was I. My only drive was that i need to get into the elite scene of riding ASAP. No one wants to start their season out being DFL. So why not get used to it now? Besides, everyone needs a good mud filled suffer fest. Figuring it's been almost three years since I had mine, time to sign up for another. Besides I was counting on some sketchy radar math that it would stop raining 1hr before the race. Gave Jim the out, and he took it. So looks like 3hrs in the car solo.

Beautiful morning...the radar implied otherwise, so I packed up my car in preparations for rain:

Empty roads at 6am on a saturday, go figure:

Drive up was uneventful. Almost got a ticket, but the guy in front of me took one for the team. Rolled into Boyne with 1hr to the start. Weather had just lifted and everything was pretty damp. Though more people would have bailed, but the parking lot was pretty full. The registration line confirmed my fears, I got the number 5 plate. Oh well, time to suffer, with the other four guys :)

Rolled up to the starting line of five guys. Robert "the man" Heriman and Greg Kuhn were the only familiar faces. The other two guys I had never seen before. One did rock a fully rigid 29'er with what appeared to be (and later confirmed) a 38t front ring and a matching 21-11 road cassette. This is never a promising sign. Apparently I didn’t get the memo saying to bring my big boy shorts.

Strange thing about elite racing, the start isn't always as fast as you'd think. Then again we were just five. We motored the first flat parts at about 20mph Greg heading up the front. Greg took a wrong turn, the 29er rigid guy biffed in some sand. So I was sitting in 2nd place behind an unknown rider. Nothing I couldn't handle ( I thought). Now once we hit the first climb, it was strange; they just kept going at the same pace. I couldn't match. They launched me off the back like space trash. 29'er man, Robert, and the unknown soldier blasted up the trail. Greg finally caught back up and gave me the words of advice for the day "settle in and push hard". So I did just that.


Being DFL has its benefits. You always look up the trail with hope and hunger looking for a straggler. For some strange reason I kept seeing Robert just up the trail. This didn't make much sense. He had been second wheel when I got dropped. Sure enough after every hill he was out of sight. Got some split times from spectators but my suspicions were confirmed when they ranged from 30seconds to 1minute depending on the hills. So I dug down and kept motoring. Sometime during the second lap I caught Robert. He too gave me some words of advice to "make sure to keep drinking and eat". That’s when I started doing the mental math, which was not promising. This race was going to be longer and much harder than I had anticipated.

When riding solo in longer races you are forced to make do with your own sag. I had put four bottles by the start finish area. Figured that would be enough for the day. Wrong. My estimated five bottle day ended up being an eight bottle day. (a big thank you to the spectator who filled my bottles and handed them to me on the last lap!) To add fuel to the bonk fire was my lack of proper food intake. During my rush to warm up I had forgotten to pack my food. So in a last minute rush I stuffed only three Gu's and two rice crispy treats in my pockets. Not nearly enough for a 3.5-4hr race. These two factors would come together going into the last lap. I kept looking at my computer on the flats. My speed was dropping. My breath was getting hot, and the hills started to look longer. Out of food and just on water and Gatorade I knew I was hosed. Robert finally caught me at 3:10:00 and that’s when the wheels fell off. Trying one last desperate attempt to catch him my matchbook was empty. The next 35minutes were a combination of dizzy spells and stopping to trying not puke. The final nail in my coffin was an expert rider passing me. Up until that point no one had passed me outside of elite men. All ambition gone I coasted the last parts of trail trying not to pass out (thankfully no one else passed me). Finally I hit the finish at 3:45:00, almost 10min ahead of the 1st place expert in my age group. So moving up wasn’t all bad, even if I only got 5th (of 5).

Looking at my data post race you can pretty much see the downward spiral into bonk land:

PROS:
* Knocked 15minutes off last years time with a longer course and against faster rider
* Dodged the rain and got perfect trail conditions
* Learned how to suffer proper like!

CONS:
* Not enough water / food intake. Rookie mistake.
* Didn’t ride my own race like a silly roadie.
* Got passed by an expert rider. Oops.